Marquez fights back for fifth

Marc Marquez makes stunning comeback after running wide on opening corner.

The opening MotoGP race of the season was a difficult one for Marc Marquez who finished fifth in Qatar. After running wide on the opening corner, Marquez was forced to fight back from last place in order to claim fifth. He overtook some 19 riders in the process.

Starting from the front row of the grid, the Repsol Honda rider dropped down the order at the beginning of the race. Marquez ran off track when attempting to take the first corner, relegating him to last place. Marquez gradually regained ground, until he slotted into fifth, with the four frontrunners unreachable thanks to an advantage of over 4 seconds.

The next round of the World Championship takes place in a fortnight at Austin, USA.

Marc Marquez: “We should be happy because we have salvaged eleven important points, when we could easily have left here with none. It was a tough race, in which I made a mistake at the first corner and dropped back to last place. This meant that I had to make a comeback, pushing hard all through the race, but in the end I saw that I could not catch the group at the front. The positive that I’ll take from today is that we rode at a similar pace to the lead group. In Austin we will continue to work hard, with an even stronger desire to do well.”